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Forum:18: From Under
The drow the group met introduced himself as Emil Kujala, a roguish drow who claimed to be working for the resistance movement Haka. He explained to the group that amongst a few drow and surface elves, there has been an agreement that the war must be brought to an end, and there is currently an effort to have the militaries of the southern continent intervene to bring a faster end to the conflict. He explained that the demons that demolished Rhezu were summoned by the Haka as a last-ditch effort to get the southern nations to take notice of Snezhny, but it was evidently a failure. He then explained that the cavern he was waiting in front of currently housed a hostage from one of the southern nations, and that the Haka intended to free this hostage in order to hopefully elicit a response from the south. The group opted to participate in this plan, and told Emil that they could see to the return of the hostage after the operation. Emil agreed, and told the group that the plan involved waiting for the sentry inside the cavern to leave on patrol, then eliminate them, take their clothes, enter and rendezvous with the Haka on the inside in order to spring the hostage before the caravan from the drow capital arrived to transport the hostage elsewhere. The group, however, opted to instead suggest that they disguise themselves as the caravan and take the hostage right from under the noses of the drow. Emil agreed, but said that he would have to ambush and replace the guard to enter regardless to see if he could suss out any information about the caravan to provide a pretext to the rest of the group. On ambushing the guard, Emil's more violent streak became apparent as he attempted to use lethal force to subdue the target, and seemed entirely too eager to use coercion and the threat of pain to get results. On the conclusion of the interrogation, he also attempted to execute the guard, but was stopped by Lin, and his hand stayed though he warned the group that they would be on their own if the sentry managed to raise an alarm. The group were fed information about the caravan through the earpiece that was lent to Emil, and he also informed them that the hostage was in the midst of a torture session at the hands of a minor drow noblewoman. Furthermore, the compound was being guarded by a group of demons accompanying the noblewoman, and they would be able to raise an alarm extremely quickly due to their telepathic powers. The group donned disguises and memorized their story before entering, and found themselves encountering only minor resistance upon entry to the dungeon, having donned convincing disguises and local mannerisms. They were admitted entry to the torture room amidst screams of pain from within, and informed Emil that they would likely need a distraction to get the target out. On entering the room, they were confronted with the sight of a blood-soaked priestly drow woman currently in the process of a multiple-amputation on a hapless human man. The group tried to convince her to let the man go on their established pretext, but she refused on the grounds that she was promised more time to "finish". Lin took advantage of the delay to close and bar the door behind them, and as Yahtuh stepped in to stop her, she lashed out and attacked him. The group made quick work of her and her entourage given that they lacked reinforcements, while Ten-Tongues gave the signal for the Haka to create a distraction. The group thus slipped out through an air vent into the cavern without any other drow the wiser for the deception, and they returned to the Meridian Cross with their hostage and the drow sentry that Emil wanted nothing to do with. Emil took the unconscious body of the drow noblewoman, saying that the Haka would likely ransom her to her family to get some money for their operations, and that the group could be paid back for their service in the future. The group, on transit back to Librem, learned that their torture victim was actually a Lordinian man. He introduced himself as Peter Gillis, and admitted that he was part of Lordin's ongoing slave trade. He was apparently selling his "merchandise" to the drow out of Nordica but they opted to instead kidnap him and his co-workers rather than do business. Now having lost both arms and a leg, Peter recognized that what had happened to him was possibly retributive and he seemed rather struck by what he had seen. He asked the group for alcohol to dull the pain, and thus inebriated, agreed to Ten Tongues' offer of radical surgery to give him new limbs. The drow sentry, meanwhile, identified himself as Kristoffer, and glumly awaited his fate, claiming that there was no point in resisting or expecting anything from him since he knew nothing of the conflict at large and held no loyalty to his nation. Lin informed him that he would instead be responsible for working for the group aboard the Cross now, and he would be rewarded for his work with three square meals and no further threats of violence. He seemed confused by this, but was ultimately motivated by a minor threat of violence from the others, reminding him that in its own twisted way, the world above the ground still made some sense. The rewards for the party are as follows: *2500 exp for successful infiltration and subterfuge amongst the drow. *Kristoffer is a new addition to the crew. *Haunted Shoes claimed by Ten Tongues *Bloodletting Stiletto, sold.